Enhancing user-centred educational design: Developing personas of mathematics school students

Persona development techniques are a well-established method to create relatable descriptions of representatives of target users of digital systems. In the field of education, research on learner characteristics has yielded comprehensive results that can help advance educational approaches. Nonetheless, these results often remain abstract and distant for researchers and practitioners. Personas offer a bridge to make this knowledge more accessible and to facilitate user-centred design processes. This study focuses on creating personas of mathematics school students to ease such accessibility. These personas are constructed based on an understanding of learners’ goals, needs, challenges and problems, joys, fears, feelings and emotions, and strategies. Data collection was conducted through a multifaceted approach, encompassing qualitative and quantitative data from web surveys, think-aloud protocols, and interviews. The target demographic comprised upper secondary school mathematics students in Austria. We found five distinct patterns of characteristics prevalent in this target group. The patterns of characteristics reflected by the personas complement the scientific body of knowledge obtained from traditional approaches investigating characteristics and needs of learners. In practical terms, these personas empower the development of user-centred digital systems, learning materials, and lessons, thus fostering an enriched educational experience for mathematics students.


Challenges & Problems
• No opportunity for in-depth learning in class ("teaching to the test") • Concepts have to be acceptedno line of reasoning is presented

Joys
• Learn something new when discussing about mathematics

Feelings & Emotions
• Disappointment due to a lack of in-depth learning   Aurelia attends the 11 th grade at a grammar school but is entirely focused on her studies.She wants to study medicine and is already preparing for the entrance exam.In case she does not pass the entrance exam, she would like to study psychology for a year in order to prepare for another attempt.To avoid this extra year, she puts the preparation for the qualifying exam before anything else and wants to leave school with the best possible grades.She is aware of the fact that mathematics and technology play an important role in the entrance exam, which is also the reason for her interest in the subject.She works hard at school and tries to shine through additional tasks.Outside school she tries to preserve her skills in mathematics by repeatedly solving exercises to prevent lapsing in exams.Her parents and her sister, who is three years older and already studying at university, support Aurelia and her plan.

Goals
• (Very) Good grades Manuel attends the 10 th grade at a grammar school.He lives with his parents, a full-time employed shop assistant and a part-time employed aide.They support Manuel but consider him to be responsible for his school duties.He plans to go to university after school, therefore successful graduation is very important for him -he cares less about school itself and what has to be done for school.To successfully graduate, he is ready to reach for any strategy -regardless of being allowed or not -that helps him pass his exams and save time and effort.When preparing for a test, Manuel tries to anticipate the minimal amount of effort necessary to pass the exam.He likes best when his teacher specifies in detail what he needs to do to receive a positive grade.Up to the 8 th grade he had been performing well in maths, afterwards the number of topics interesting for him decreased and his performance got worse.Once the situation forces him to raise his effort, he desires exercises that present rules and recipes that help him drill the relevant topics.All in all, Manuel approaches his tasks and lessons quite unemotionally and indifferently.He doesn't waste much thought, but is still happy when he achieves something with little effort.He is persistent when it comes to console games, which he spends hours on also at night.

Goals
• To reach a low goal with as little effort and time as possible

Needs
• To be told exactly what to do to • Availability of mathematical recipes

Persona 4: Diana Markovic, 15 years
Diana is attending the 9 th grade at an upper secondary school and is thinking of changing to a school that prepares for a caring profession or commencing a caring profession.She moved to Austria with her parents when she was 7 years old.At school she considers some subjects very important and other subjects not important at all.For her, mathematics is one of the important subjects, although it is challenging for her.Her main goal is to receive positive grades, but she strives to perform better at the next opportunity.In her free time with her friends, she is very talkative and likes gossip that includes high society, while in class she is rather calm and does not like to stand out.Even when she is able to follow the teacher's explanations and to answer their questions, she usually keeps to herself and doesn't share her answers.
When necessary, Diana receives private tutoring and searches for additional exercise materials that are of help for her.
She has a patient nature and takes sufficient time to prepare for exams so that she can go up comfortably to her exams and to relieve her worries for not receiving satisfying grades.

Goals
• Pass grade or better grade than in the prior assessment

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To not attract attention • To not be called on in class

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Invest a lot of time in internalising mathematical recipes • Use study materials to practise • Use a variety of sources (e.g., private tutoring, internet)